Fading Light
by tigerchic121
Summary: The words still echo in her mind, even as her reality seems to wane away.  Try as she might she can never find him, try as she might she can never forget.  [RavenJericho.]


_This is the last one-shot I had to write for the Last Author Standing Contest. The prompt was the first section/drabble italicized. This entry won me the round, and the contest. Stick with it, it's slow at first, but it gets better as you go along_.**_

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**_(Drabble) (Prompt)_**

Raven paced up and down, jiggling her mouth. Her very good friend, Mary Sue Steam, had arranged to meet her here over the line. "I have something enchanting to tell you," she had said.

Mary Sue Steam was late, which was very unlike her. Any moment now, Raven expected to see her bounce up, her considered hair streaming behind her and her astral eyes aglow.

Raven heard footsteps, but they seemed rather mauve for a delicate and diminutive girl like Mary Sue Steam, whose tread was auroral. She turned around and found Jericho staring at her.

"What are you doing here?" Jericho said timidly. "I thought you said you didn't want to see me again."

Raven had said that, but now she was beginning to wish she hadn't acted so silently. "Mary Sue Steam asked to meet me here." As she gazed at Jericho, her hand began to throb quickly.

"Oh," Jericho said, improbably. "I'll just go then."

"Wait," Raven said and caught Jericho by his eye. "I was wrong. I still love you. Can you ever forgive me?"

"Yes," Jericho said, smiling. They wrapped their arms around each other and kissed, like the warm flutter of wind that rustles the summer trees.

The room is dimly lit by the candles adorning it, flickering as they come to the last bit of spark left in them. The scented vanilla wax oozes slightly out of its dish, eventually hardening and stopping its journey.

There is a lone figure in the room, asleep upon dark purple satin sheets, a happy look adorning her faces as thought recalling a pleasant memory, having a wonderful dream. A sole beam of light streams from a crack in her window, catching her face. She rises slowly allowing herself to sit and ponder her reality of dreams for a few moments more. She feels like this will be a wonderful day. _What a bizarre dream too,_ she thinks, _I can't wait to tell Jericho-_

That is until she looks around, sees no one there but herself, and finds herself in her dark and gloomy room, waiting for dawn to come.

Raven isn't one to dream of happy things. In fact Raven isn't one to dream at all. Her mind would rather haunt her during the day, her darker side determined to completely break her kind and good side, and then possess her body completely, a nice little present from her father. It usually doesn't succeed, due to her daily meditations and really good friends.

This time it does.

Her mind builds her up with happy dreams and false realties at night, so that when she wakes up, to the reality and loss it all, instead of all the happiness and cheer, she has no hope, no will.

In the few hours before the sun rises, she turns into the cover of her bed, ruefully blinks back her salty tears, and waits.

_**(Redux) (Part One) (Morning)**_

The night was black and still, still except for the wind from the hazy sky rustling over the sleeping city, rippling over the deep daunting water. The solitary source of light was the moon, hidden by waspish clouds, yellow-orange light unfurling over the sky. The vague yellow light tinting the sky pulsed brightly for a moment, before sinking back into the recluse of the clouds, and being completely shielded from sight. Even the blinking city lights seemed to be dim

Darkness reigned, and it seemed as though there would never be light again.

Until…until from the deep and seemingly endless depths of the sea, comes the great, daunting, and bright red sun. Rising swiftly in a parabola of blinding light, into the sky the sun quickly thrusts, marking a new day. The clouds seem to part for the sun, as it begins to reclaim its fiery place in the sky.

The bustle of the city, people, wildlife, animals rising, commuters clogging and polluting the street in a mass effort to get to work, usually does not reach across the water, to the island upon which a tower is sitting to disturb the Titans. They act as normal teenagers are expected to act, sleeping late and only getting up from bed when forced.

However there is one exception.

She stands at her window, curtains open, staring out of it. Her hands idle along the side of her open window, fluttering against the wind. Her face contains a distant far away look. Her lips draw into a tight line, biting together, soft fleshy and dry upon each others touch. Her eyes hold the most emotion on her face, dancing from looks of fear and apprehension to sadness, rejection, and loss. Still, even with the emotions burning within the core of her eyes, they contain a clouded look, not piercing and lucid as you might expect them to be.

Slowly she fixes her gaze on the rising sun and the reflections it makes against the glittering water. Her hands then stop their fluttering and situate themselves against the wooden pane, her lips and face relax, and her eyes slowly dwindle down from the prolonged emotion pulsing through them and her sight is caught on the sun once more, until she closes them with a small snap of eyelashes dancing before her sight.

The sun settles itself upon her face, illuminating her striking features and bones in her face. Behind her the room is slowly filling with light, slowly reflecting over a bookcase, neatly compacted bed, and a nightstand with an ornate mirror upon it. But the girl doesn't pay attention to this.

The girl is standing in the room; eyes closed allowing her body to drink the sun. Her hands remain rooted as she arches up and forward out the window, to better receive the rays of light. She remains there for a while, until it appears nothing more will happen pas this quest to grab the light impending from the sun.

That is, until the girl, seems to radiate slightly, light bouncing and retracting off her skin. It's the same room, with the same sun, window, tower, water, city, bustling people, sleeping Titans, and wind rustling across the water propelled by the clouds.

It's all the girl.

The sun seems to be made for her. Its rays arch out to her and envelop her lithe form in a soft mesmerizing glow. Her hair picks up slowly out of its place framing her face, but not from any apparent wind. The garments positioned on her body slowly glow to a gold to match the suns beams and then they slowly fade into a silver color that seems to be made of and fully encompass pure white light.

This light pulses out of her body, from every pore and crevice, joining with the rays from the sun in a meshing of harmony and melody of silver and gold, that reaches out to the corners of the normally dark and gloomy room, staining light into the darkness. It lights up the titles of the books on the bookcase, and turns the mirror into a vat of blinding light that is the same color of the light swirling around the girl's body.

The figure completely engulfed in lights slowly raises her hands from their spot on her thighs up into the air, and she spreads them out to side as if she is trying to fly. Seconds latter, complimenting her move, her heel, then the ball of her foot, then her toes slowly inch her off the ground, until she is levitating as such. The look of her face changes from one of calm joy, to one of longing. Her face strains and she rises a few more inches bowing towards the right, her eyes fluttering and straining to keep closed as she concentrates on her task.

She takes the feeling of being completely warm and safe, and forces the warmth up and out of her body. The sphere of light takes form around her, glowing white with a golden out line, into a large dove.

With that same look of longing, of pain, of concentration she thrusts her arms up and then out in front of her, the Dove respectively lifting off her body and then flouting out of the window. It hovers outside the tower, both contrasting and complementing its sleek silver frame. Only now does the figure open her eyes.

"Go." She commands her voice soft and demanding. "Go and find him, please." Her voice throbs.

The figure outside the window, figure of light, magic, and emotion, ascends into the heavens, streaking over the city, nearly taking all the glory from the slow rising sun. Many people don't notice the figure, tucked away safely asleep. Those who do, do not understand the complexity of what they are witnessing, rub their eyes, grumble about needing coffee, and later tell a few confidants about how they saw the strangest cloud that morning.

Inside Titans Tower, Raven collapses as reality caves in on her.

_I'm sorry…I'm so, so sorry. Please come back._

The Dove pulses with light.

_**(Redux) (Part Three) (Meetings)**_

_They first meet across a crowded room. They've just defeated t__he Brotherhood of Evil, and the Titans from all around the world are milling around the Tower. Between the chaoses of the tower their eyes meet. His gaze is penetrating, but she can tell that he's holding his gaze back, reining it in._

_Slowly, he ambles his way across the room to where she stands._

"_Hi," her voice is the same monotone as ever, but it holds a certain intrigued aspect to it. She pulls upon her rudimentary knowledge of the teen standing before her. "Jericho, right?"_

_He nods._

_She continues talking._

"_You don't talk, right?"_

_He nods again._

"_Then I think we're going get along really well."_

_His lips curl into a smile._

_Tender lips meet over a mug of steaming tea, anxiously coming together._

_Raven doesn't like to talk. She finds talking boring for the most part (unless of course she happens to be baiting Beast Boy or utterly cutting someone down with her sarcasm.)_

_She would much rather curl up with a book and read then participate in a gossip session.__ This is why she likes Jericho so much._

_She's the only one in the tower who understands him. Who __**reads**__ him. His lips form words and letters that she can figure out and piece together with the gestures his face and hands make. She can study him, his body language, and determine what mood he's in. She can read him…and she likes what she reads. He's like a really good book, one you love to read over and over again, one that influences you actions, life and emotions, and one you can surely never forget._

_Now, with her back to the window and the sun in the kitchen, with the light streaming onto his hair, and reflecting back at her, his lips pink and wet from their brief meeting with hers, she doesn't even needed to look at his lips to read what he's trying to tell her. She can see it in his eyes._

'_Kiss me.'_

_And so she does, their mug of Tea left forgotten in the middle of the table, intermingling with the breathes they take, as their lips meet, become acquainted, and linger over each others._

"_I can't love you."_

_The words come out of her mouth before she stops herself. His most heartfelt words, his gently mouthed, I love you, is cut by her words like a slap to the face. His mouth falls from its elated smile, and his emerald eyes seem to lose their shine. Humiliated he quickly strides away from her, leaving her feel utterly along in the park at which they came to eat._

_She…she can't love him, she realizes one day after they meet. It's just after breakfast and their mugs of hot tea lay on the table, the steaming rising slightly around them, soothing their lungs. _

_He leans over the table and in for a kiss. Their lips meet eagerly. They stay like this for a moment, until Jericho surprises her by deepening the kiss. As their teeth and fleshy tongues touch, her emotion peaks in a tingle of feeling._

_Her powers act accordingly._

_Her dark energy quickly pulses out of her like a whip that hits Jericho and draws blood from the corner of his eye. He's surprised for a second, but takes amusement after she explains what has happened._

_She does not._

_She realizes that if she loves him, truly loves him that she will ultimately end up hurting him._

"_Jericho!" She screams after him, desperate to get him back, desperate to get him to hear her._

_He looks back, and his expression is unreadable, even by Raven. Her breath falters, and her heart pounds into her chests as she faces his blank gaze._

"_I...I--"_

_But the words can't come out of her mouth, and this time when he strides away, he doesn't come back. This time, after this fight, he doesn't come back._

_Their first misunderstanding, this misunderstanding, becomes their last one._

_She quietly breathes her words unspoken._

"_I'm afraid to love you…"_

_**(Redux) (Part Four) (Pain)**_

It's like a cut. You know, one of those small seemingly insignificant cuts you get on your arm when you're young, busy, and caught up in a whirlwind of change. You're not even really sure how you get this cut in the first place, for it's only a tiny cut, you're only slightly bleeding, and besides, your days are filled with happy memories, changes, and fun-the initial pain you feel just gets lost in the shuffle.

It's a gradual pain, one that only hurts when you have time to break from that whirlwind of activity, when you have time to think about your cut, or when it gets hit against something. But this pain can be quickly shaken off, because you have hope that this wound will close someday soon, and really, it doesn't really matter if you emerge from your transitions with one tiny little cut-the rest of your arm is fine and unblemished so you have much to be grateful for.

You clutch onto that foolhardy hope as you continue through your way in like, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the deep and unnerving pain that the cut begins to pulsate. You brush off the concerns from ones close to you, insisting that there's nothing's wrong, and if they'll please just stop worrying. You smile to assure them further, all flashy teeth and squinty eyes. You try to smile all the time-when you catch yourself _not_ smiling you quickly plaster a grin on your face, as though you have to convince yourself that you're alright. Just a silly cut, yes? Nothing to be alarmed about. The pain will go away soon, right?

But you slowly find this is not the case. Your plea's that you'll be okay seem false to even your own ears, but at the moment pretending everything will work out fine is easier then facing the real problem any sooner then what is necessary. Easier said then done, especially because the almost non existent pain in your arm, from that tiny cut in your arm is but a memory. Your arm hurts dynamically, so much it drives you to tears sometimes. But your smile, that everything-will-be-just-dandy smile of yours, becomes a little more forced, and a whole lot more awkward. Your whole arm starts to hurt and what little hope you have left in your heart dies away.

You look down at your cut, only to find it spread out across your arm, oozing unsightly, infected to the core. You fully, incredibly, soak in the pain, you accept it for what it is, and while you cry for a while over it, mostly, you also are forced to grow up, and fix the problem. You're vaguely aware that your happiness is slipping away, but don't care. You set out to find a cure for your arm, even though you know that your cure can not be found. Your cure is in essence, the reason your arm hurts, and fully healing your arm is something you lost faith in long ago.

So you settle for a bandage. It's thrown together clumsily out of friends you shyly make, shallow material things, and time itself. As you get older, as time goes on, the bandage gains another paper thin layer, flittingly making its way to the top of the previous layer. It's not a cure, but it's enough.

From the mouth of a genius, you quickly and purely realize that time is relative. Even as time goes on, as that bandage gains one more layer, the process of building up that bandage can slow increasingly, sometimes even damaging what bandaging you already have. Other times the process speeds up exponentially.

Yes, Raven is sure these half memories, empty promises, real pains, and shotty realities surrounding her, are exactly like a cut. A cut she had gotten when she found herself falling for **him**, falling hard, falling in love.

Her 'arm' still hurts, especially when it gets 'prodded' or 'bumped' hard, by barely remembered memories linked to some sort of subconsciously symbolist adventure she dreams she's had. She can't remember her memories (save for a few snatches of conversation and images, the most prominent a pair of striking green eyes.)

But the 'bandage' never, ever comes off.

Or at least that's what she likes to tell herself.

But that dream is still there still haunting her. Her words…_I can't love you…_echo with in her ears whenever she has a moment of silence, when she's alone with only her mind.

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